^^^^—-Header Image—-^^^^

About.me

Author, Actor, Father, Wildman

Hates the World;

Loves the world;

Writes about the world;

End of Story.

Contact

To contact Bill, click here.

Into the Dark–Escape of the Nomad

In a world where space travel is forbidden, former astronaut Stan McPherson wants to return to space but finds himself caught up in a dangerous game of interstellar cloak-and-dagger. Click the image above to read Chapter 1 online for free.

Where’s The Cat?

On a long cargo flight to the outer solar system, Pauline gets a visitor she didn't expect, and learns of a marvelous friend she never knew she had. Click on the image above to read this short fiction online for free.

Another Man’s Terrorist

Two orphaned child soldiers sell all they have to leave their war-torn planet on a quest for peace, but when they arrive at their new home they find that the war has beaten them there. Now the older sister Jessica must struggle to keep the only family she has left from being lost in a conflict that she no longer wants. Click the image above to read this story for free online. For a limited time only!

When U.S. astronauts next launch to space from Florida, the control team that oversees their liftoff may celebrate with the traditional crock of beans. If so, they'll be honoring the legacy of test director Norm Carlson, too.

"Star Wars" is about to get the LEGO treatment. Disney XD is planning to air "LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales" later in 2015, according to a report from the Hollywood Reporter. The five-episode series will act as a re-telling of the six "Star Wars" films from

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live on the moon? What about Mars, or Venus or Mercury? We sure have and that's why we decided to find out what it might be like to live on other worlds in our solar system, from Mercury to Pluto and beyond

A network of amateur astronomers is responsible for identifying a truly mysterious phenomenon on the surface of Mars: a plume reaching so high above the surface of the Red Planet that it was visible from Earth.

Galaxy cluster Abel 1689 is so massive, light bends around it in an effect predicted by Einstein called a gravitational lens, revealing Galaxy A1689-zD1 to be surprisingly mature despite the young age of the universe seen.

NASA's Dawn probe is scheduled to slip into orbit around Ceres — the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT) Friday, wrapping up a deep-space chase that lasted two-and-a-half years.

Inserted into Ceres orbit on March 6th, 2015, the Dawn mission has been sending progressively better imagery to Earth since December 2014. Ceres is by far the largest body in the Main Belt of asteroids.

Children get the flu more often than adults do, a new study finds. Kids typically catch the flu once every two years, whereas adults over age 30 get the flu about twice a decade, a study of people living in China found.

University of Utah engineer Cale Fallgatter and atmospheric scientist Tim Garrett captured falling snowflakes to improve weather warning and road condition forecasts. But, in the process, they explode an old myth: the symmetrical snowflake.

In the event of a zombie outbreak, the best place to hide is away from populated areas, scientists have confirmed. A team of researchers decided to model what would happen if an epidemic of the undead hit the United States.

In calm waters, barnacle penises are long and slender, allowing them to reach the maximum amount of partners possible. But wave-exposed, intertidal locales favor stouter penises, which are more easily controlled under turbulent conditions.

The percentage of people in the United States who see regular marijuana use as harmful has fallen since the beginning of the 21st century, a new study finds. That could translate into more pot users in the future.

Geysers erupt, sending steam and hot water hundreds of feet into the air, because of a series of loops and side chambers hidden deep below the surface that allow water to boil first at the top and then cascade downward, a new study suggests.

Masten is now accepting applications for internships for the Summer of 2015. If you’ve followed us you know we’ve had a great history of outstanding interns working with us. There are few places like us that can deliver an internship with this level of responsibility and hands on work. We’re not looking for gophers, we’re looking

Mojave, CA (July 23, 2014) — Masten Space Systems, Inc. (Masten) announced today that the company has been awarded a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of Phase 1 of the Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program to develop a reusable launch vehicle. Over the last decade, Masten has built three highly

Masten is now accepting applications for internships for the Spring of 2015. If you’ve followed us you know we’ve had a great history of outstanding interns working with us. There are few places like us that can deliver an internship with this level of responsibility and hands on work. We’re not looking for gophers, we’re looking

A lot has been going on in the past year, and while we have been busy with clients and flying customer payloads, the Masten Team has also been thinking about ways we could engage the broader community and increase accessibility to our VTVL vehicles. One of the largest barriers to entry for any technology developer

We get asked on a regular basis what life is like working at Masten. Well, the good folks at KQED (San Francisco Bay Area PBS affiliate) came out in May to capture a slice of Mojave with a healthy dose of Masten rockets. Watch for Masten to appear around time marker 13:47. We really enjoyed hosting

Masten is now accepting applications for internships for the Summer of 2014. If you’ve followed us you know we’ve had a great history of outstanding interns working with us. There are few places like us that can deliver an internship with this level of responsibility and hands on work. We’re not looking for gophers, we’re looking

Most of the time these blog posts update you on just a glimpse of what’s going on behind the curtain over here at Masten, and the man behind that curtain for most of those posts over the last three plus years has been Colin. Today’s post is a little different. Today, it is both with

Since last summer, even while we focused on Xombie flights for JPL and expanding Xaero’s flight envelope, we were working. Designing, tweaking, and starting to build the next iteration of Xaero that we affectionately (and creatively) call Xaero-B. We’re finally ready to pull the curtain back and share her with you! Xaero-B is intended to

We finished our work early and now we have extra time for you! As a result, a special one-time deal can be yours this February. Think of it as our Valentine’s Day present to the space community. For projects that can fly by the end of February, we’re offering an open loop flight on our

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is about to make its second and final stop during its exploration of the asteroid belt and it is already returning some stunning images that are creating more questions than answers.

The International Space Station may be seriously graying at the temples, but that doesn't mean it still can't contribute meaningfully to science. Trace explains why the venerable space lab still matters.

Astronomers have detected a black hole embedded in the spiral arm of a galaxy 100 million light-years from Earth — but this isn’t any old black hole, it belongs to an extremely elusive class that may be the ‘missing link’ in black hole evolution.